The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
All publications herein are incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
Current in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems are generally either fully wired, e.g. using Ethernet, or fully wireless, e.g. using Wi-Fi. An IFE is composed of servers, used for hosting data and controlling clients, and a number of individual passenger's screens (clients, which are generally mounted on the seats). Two IFE architectures are generally used: (1) distributed architecture, and (2) client centric architecture. Distributed architectures store most of or all of the content on server(s) and distribute the content to multiple, individual clients via streaming. Client centric architectures utilize the internal memory of the clients to store content locally (e.g. in client memory), which allows the clients to operate in an autonomous fashion, fore example playing content independently (to some extent) from the server(s). In both architectures the distribution of the content has to be performed by the server(s) to the clients either prior to flight and/or during the flight. The content is distributed using an IFE network in place in the aircraft.
Current fully wired (e.g. Ethernet) or fully wireless IFEs are limited necessarily by the capacity or performance of server resources that have to be shared by all clients that are being served at a given time (e.g. CPU, network, memory, mass storage, etc.). If there is one active server available the server has to serve hundreds of clients, which can lead to significant performance bottlenecks. One solution is to increase the number of servers so as to create sub-networks that have a relatively reduced number of clients sharing the server resources, thereby offering a higher achievable data rate per client. In fully wireless systems, however, at least several radio cells have to be deployed within the aircraft-primarily because a wireless LAN access point (WLAN AP) cannot serve a large number of active users at the same time. The medium has to be shared between the clients connected to the same WLAN AP. While a wired network inherently offers reliability it increases the number of cables and connectors, and therefore undesirably increases the weight of the aircraft. A wireless network, such as proposed in European Patent 1561308 (to Marston et al.), reduces the number of cables and connectors, transmission over a wireless medium is not as reliable as a wired network.
Systems that incorporate both wired and wireless communication have been proposed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,565,758 (to Owyang et al.) describes a complex wireless data distribution architecture for use in an aircraft that incorporates a wireless distribution system that is in wired or wireless contact with an information network, however it provides little insight regarding how such a system can be physically implemented. U.S. Pat. No. 9,420,629 (to Krug) describes a system for providing broadband content within an aircraft by providing a central server that has a wired connection with a switch, where the switch can communicate with peripheral devices (which can be addressed as groups) via wireless protocols. Similarly, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005/0021602 (to Noel et al.) describe a system in which a central server has wired connections to numerous wireless transmitters throughout the cabin of an aircraft, where each wireless transmitter provide information to wireless receivers associated with a group of seats. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0139467 (to Rogerson and Mclelland) describes a media distribution system for use on an aircraft in which distribution units are provided that have an Ethernet connection with a media server or a web server, and have wireless connections to display units associated with seats of the aircraft. The display units can include processors and memory, and can interact with the wired distribution units to act as a distributed server, however it is unclear how information is distributed and exchanged within the described network.
Thus, there is still a need for a system that provides a sufficiently high rate of content transfer to support a large number of active passenger screens in an in-flight entertainment system without adding a burdensome amount of weight to the aircraft.